OpEd: 'We All Unite To Eliminate Jihadis Of All Stripes'

At least 150 people, mostly children, have been killed in a Taliban assault on an army-run school in Peshawar. According to Pakistan Taliban, which has taken responsibility for the carnage, the school had been targeted in response to a recent offensive by the Pakistan Army in which hundreds of militants are believed to have been killed in North Waziristan and Khyber. 

Undoubtedly, this senseless act of unspeakable brutality should be strongly condemned by all.
Coming within 24 hours of the Sydney hostage crisis, in which the lone terrorist and two of his hostages were killed as security forces stormed a popular cafe, this attests the harsh reality that jihadi terrorists have no religion and no respect for human rights.

The commonality, however, ends there. In Peshawar, the source of terror was from a terrorist group once nurtured by successive Pakistani establishments. The threat from this Frankenstein’s monster cannot be eliminated unless Pakistan’s military stops pursuing the dubious strategy of sponsoring some terrorist outfits directed against India and Afghanistan. Pakistan has to dismantle the entire terror structure within its territory. It cannot fight global terrorism and nurse it at the same time, and the US and the rest of the world must force it to do so.

In case of the Sydney siege, the threat emerged from a lone wolf. Earlier, the arrest of Bangalore-based Twitter handler for Islamic State propaganda, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, showed how educated virtual jihadis present a new dimension of global terror. Many such self-indoctrinated ISIS supporters could be roaming freely in the cyber space. 

The security agencies of India and other countries engaged in war against global terrorism must ensure constant monitoring of cyberspace. There should also be an institutional mechanism for real time sharing of data. Simultaneously, it must be ensured through effective societal and governmental interventions that these virtual jihadis do not become real terrorists.